1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to color adjustment techniques for output images. In particular, the present invention relates to a color adjusting apparatus, a display apparatus, a printing apparatus, an image processing apparatus, a method for adjusting colors, a method for displaying a graphical user interface (GUI), and a program which implement the color adjustment techniques.
2. Description of the Related Art
In image output, there are situations where colors of original images do not match those of output images. An example of such situations is illustrated in FIG. 1. For example, blue in an original image is seen as violet in an output image, and violet in the original image is seen as magenta in the output image. This color mismatch is caused by coloring characteristics unique to individual output devices.
For this reason, various color adjustment techniques have been developed.
In color adjustment of image data, in general, a red component (R component), a green component (G component), and a blue component (B component) of each pixel are individually adjusted.
However, this adjustment scheme has a disadvantage in that it is difficult for a human to perceive a relationship between the amount of adjustment and the amount of resultant color change. For example, when generating a color close to that of human skin, it is difficult to determine how the balance of the R component, G component, and B component is to be changed or adjusted. In addition, it is not certain in many circumstances whether the change of the color balance will bring about a desired color.
Thus, techniques have been developed in which images in the RGB color space are transformed into the HSV color space, and then the hues of the images are adjusted (see, for example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2001-352459 and Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2004-064198). The HSV color space is a color perception space in which a color is defined by three dimensions: hue, saturation, and value or lightness.